A telling sign of the onset of learned helplessness is the subsiding of anger on the trading floor, anger being in fact a healthy sign that someone fully expects to be in control. During a crisis, when swearing dies down, fewer phones are smashed, and anger is replaced by resignation, withdrawal and depression, chances are traders have succumbed to learned helplessness. Once stress in the financial world has reached this pathological state, governments must step in, as they did in 2008–9, and do the job that traders can no longer perform—buy risky assets, reduce credit risk, lead the traders,
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